Facebook Will Soon Add Editing Feature to Look Back Videos

Facebook has reportedly announced that a editing button will be available to users for the popular new “look back” videos which have made quite a splash in the social media giant’s pool of users. The social network giant was inundated Wednesday by people sharing what looked to be collage-style video’s which supposedly would summarize snapshots of the users past experiences. The Facebook “look back” video’s were a quick 1-minute summary of a user’s “timeline” which appeared to be quite popular right from the introduction of the new feature.

The video feature was brought to users in connection with the 10-year anniversary of Facebook, and it provides a summary of a users usage of the social network from the date they started until the release of the new feature. The short film provides the user a view of their most liked photos, along with ones they have most frequently shared, along with a couple of other tid-bits before fading out to an image of its classic thumbs-up.

The new feature has been quite a hit with Facebook members, as it has swamped the social network with millions upon millions of shares just a day after its release. Users have expressed a wide array of responses to the new feature, with a majority of them being positive. The few critical responses appear to have come with reference to the sheer amount of information Facebook has attained, along with its up-front intention to profit from the personal information of its users.

Some moving stories have been circulating in connection with the new feature. One of the most popular, out of the hundreds of millions of video’s created, is one that was yet un-made, but requested by the father of a deceased son who asked that Facebook provide him with his son’s “look back” video. John Berlin, the father of a 21-year-old son whom he said he lost to natural undetermined causes, made a video which requested Zuckerberg and company to compile and send him his son’s look back video. The short plea recorded and posted by Mr. Berlin went viral in a matter of hours, with the video racking up almost a million views in its first day.

Apparently Facebook and Zuckerberg “heard” the request and according to the Mr. Berlin have agreed to work on and send him a look back video from his late sons account. Berlin posted a small note on his page which detailed the fact that thanks to the assistance of the hundreds of thousands of users sharing his video, the company had given him the news that they would indeed fulfill his request for his sons video.

Apart from warm responses and the moving story of John Berlin however, there are a few issues with the new video’s which users would like addressed. The video appears to have been personally made, as its collage-style presentation denotes some sort of personal input. This can be positive, if all of a users close friends and family are satisfied with what the video showed, however there have been reports of spouses ending up in the proverbial doghouse for not including adequate coverage of a significant other in their video. Whether or not any personal input was involved the lack of a significant other’s presence in one’s “life synopsis” may cause some relationship friction that otherwise did not need to be present.

For this and other reasons, Facebook has reportedly announced, according to TechCrunch, that an edit feature will be coming soon to the new “look back” video’s which will allow users to have some control over what makes or doesn’t make the final cut. Unfortunately no specific date has been ascertained, but the feature is said to be coming “soon.”